Why Google Stores Billions of Lines of Code in a Single Repository

Why HN readers recommended it

The go-to reference in monorepo and trunk-based development discussions, recommended as a firsthand account of how Google manages source control.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

@Scale

Topic

monorepos

Format

talk

Level

intermediate

HN recommenders in dataset

2

HN mentions in dataset

6

Recommendation years in dataset

2016–2022

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• It's common practice for folks building Go binaries (but not libraries) to check in the code for their dependencies. So whenever you build Docker, you get the same thing unless Docker made a change (either by changing Docker itself or explicitly checking in an upgrade …

• Google doesn't use perforce anymore. They have a custom in-house SCM that has various interfaces wrapped around it. I'd recommend this video that describes it. [VIDEO]

• Googler opinions are my own. I also highly recommend this ACM article talking about our source control from 2016. [LINK] There's also a YouTube video which is linked from the wired article that is good. [VIDEO]